April 27, 2006

           Yeah, I’m a morning person, but this morning is not one of them. Where I got into the shop early and had a great day both in lessons and good money, there were constant reminders that this is still Florida. You have to be extra careful in everything to prevent some local sneaking up and trying something funny. Mind you, I'm pretty used to that but I still hate monkey see monkey do. It strains the available resources.
           These are all little things, I am aware of that. It is that added together they took the edge of enjoyment out of the day. Examples are, let me think, where to start? Okay, start anywhere. You know those tamper-proof plastic seals they put on bottles, like salad dressing. The ones you have to peel off to open the cap? Wow, today I had one that I had to take into the work room (now that I have one, of course) and use my tools to get the thing off.

           How about extension cords? It seems to me to tie a knot in a line, you have to get one end through a loop. So why is it, when you carefully roll up a cord, then unroll it later, the knot appears in the center? Huh, tell me, c’mon. Right in the damn center.
           Now my argument for privacy, I say it is an important commodity that should never be denied to those who want it at their own expense. Even that is a loose definition, because as long as they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, it should cost them nothing. My beef is with imitation, because as I mentioned just now, it eats up the raw materials. I know, let me take you back a few years for an example. All this happened before I was ten, but it serves to prove a point about copy-cat-ism.

           Remember those red plastic bricks in the tube? You could build houses and things and the package usually showed something that could not possibly be built with the contents? We had those when I was growing up. I don’t think they make them any more because of a choking hazard. That means to save the life of some stupid brat stupid enough to choke on anything so they can grow up to be a single mother or car thief, you know the type. They are going to roll their SUV talking on the cell phone anyway, and thanks to them, the world is without an educational toy.
           Anyway, the toy was too educational. It would sit in the tube for eons, until I decided to build something. I would read the instructions and count the number of bricks and decide which project to begin, often calculating to the brick what could be done with the available resources. Hey, I said educational, because I still plan like that today. So how does too educational come into it? Easy, I had brothers and sisters.

           They sat there until they saw me start. All of a sudden they want to play with the bricks too. They quickly learned, every last one of them, that this played right into the misguided priorities of the local authorities, my parents. We all remember enforced co-operation, where you have to cooperate but in reality you hope they will die.
           Now there are dozens of hands grabbing the bricks as fast as they can. It would do no good to point out that they were not building anything or that they would stop and to watch TV the second I quit, and start again if I did. I never could figure out what motivates such people, but I know it has something to do with not wanting to look even worse than they are by comparison. Yes, I know all this has parallels in contemporary economics theory. I just think my example is more understandable.

           There I feel I’ve done a service. It is hell educating fundamentally ignorant people. They would pull the stunt just described and never understand why you didn’t take on anything after that. Why you were not continually devising more opportunities for cooperation. While not strictly true, I have often claimed that situation is what channeled me in life toward things that cannot be equally divided, such as music and knowledge. It proved impossible for even my parents to break a piano lesson into six pieces, though rest assured they would have. Another great tactic is to pretend something was work. Like this journal. As long as it is perceived as work, they won’t touch it.
           [This reference to Cheryl, a skinny lady who the G tricked into showing up at the coffee house.] Weird Cheryl, every attractive quality she ever had given away to a guy who kicked her out when she refused to pay for repairs to the air conditioning in his car. Cheryl does not understand that I think she is okay but I do not like her that way. A man who says no to opportunistic sex is not a square peg in her world. She perceives male sex drive as consisting primarily of desperation and has never met someone like me who operates on marginal but significantly sounder principles.

           The new home office Sonny called and he has to unload some computers for quick cash. This is being written on one of them. It is a beauty, but still only 1.8 GHz and 512 RAM. It works much faster than the comparable unit at the shop. Maybe a better internal design. At any rate, I played back full video on it so be ready for some kind of production in the near future, It still has some bugs, for instance it is set so the admin account cannot add or delete programs and it does not display any optical drives in the main menu. It can work them but I must have the display.
           It took all evening to set this up, partly due to my decision to get this whole computer part of my life up off the ground level in the Florida room. There is no evidence of flooding but it doesn’t make sense to leave anything on the ground when I had an underused dining room. Here is the new setup, and a closer look at the computer which I refer to as the ‘Screamin’ Demon’.

           Ah, here’s some pictures of my newest student, Bob. He wants basic computer skills and his story is familiar. He worked for years in a government office, only to retire and almost immediately have a heart attack. They’ve told him not to plan too far ahead, know what I mean. He worked on a computer for years, probably fifteen or more. Of course, once he got out of there and tried to get something done at home, he realized that all those years count for nothing when you have a PC. You really got to know your stuff or you will be on the chat lines and not much else. Hey, does that remind you of any big company I used to work for?
           New student and the camera lesson. He wants to know the Internet basics, such as e-mail and how to send an attachment. We’ve had two lessons and he is a reminder of what the people who sell you things often don’t tell you. Say you are going to buy a digital camera. Well, go buy one and you may wish you had listened to me. Let’s make a basic list of what you have to make sure is on your table to get your value from this camera.

· interface cable
· batteries
· camera driver
· photo software
· color printer
· CD burner
· CD burner software

           You get the idea. If you try to cut corners, you don’t get to do much with the camera. That is your basic list, because of course, you will need the correct cables, driver and cartridges for the printer, and the correct type of paper for the photos you intend to print. None of which they told you about in advance, I’ll bet. If computer gadget sales was an honest business, I wouldn’t have a job.
           The new computer is fascinating. It will take a little getting used to. That is partially because I forgot all the dozens of customized settings from the old unit. I know it is possible to migrate all that, but migrate sounds too much like migraine. I prefer to relearn all the setting in case a student asks. Oh, there was an interest question posed on the Vancouver CL, “If abnormal means not normal, what does aboriginal mean?”

           Time to pump out some words for sale, as well. There has got to be a market for what I write, and please don’t get the impression this journal represents all of my output, or for that matter, my best output. The top things I do are advertising copy, something that even strangers and critics agree is ‘very persuasive material’.
           Then I’ll be able to claim I quit the corporate world and went to live in a $400 a month trailer in Hallandale Beach, to write for a living. Sure, nothing published in ten years, but what the hell, at least I didn’t spent the time at somebody else’s desk unless I felt like it.